How to Train Your Mabel
by Esther Kirkland
Summary: There were three things in life that Mabel Pines hated. Baby dragons weren't on the list. Just an adventure fic, hopefully in the same tone as a real episode. Takes place soon after the twins arrive in Gravity Falls, just before The Hand that Rocks the Mabel. (No real ships, no real theories - just a Mabel-centric adventure and baby dragons and general fun in Gravity Falls.)
1. Chapter 1

There were three things in life that Mabel Pines hated.

The first was sadness. She refused to let anyone stay sad if it was within her considerable power to make them happy.

Or at least annoyed. Which was still better than sad, in her opinion.

The second was being wrong. Not that she was ever wrong, of course, but when people _thought_ she was wrong, for that brief moment before she explained things to them and they realized that it was all backwards and actually _they_ were wrong… Yeah. She hated that.

But the last thing that Mabel Pines hated was pure and simple _boredom_. It didn't strike her very often – there were far too many craft projects in the world for that – but when it did…

" _Gaaaaaaaaah_ ," she moaned, hanging over the edge of her bed and staring at the ceiling. "Dipper, I'm sooo _bored_."

Outside, sheets of rain came down in a summer thunderstorm, rattling on the roof and creating dimly reflecting puddles under the evergreen trees. Thunder rumbled low in the distance, and the sky was that sort of dark grey that only a storm that plans to stick around all day can create: surly and thick like the pelt of a fat, unhappy cat.

In the middle of their attic room, Dipper was curled up in a nest of blankets and discarded sweaters, nose buried in that weird journal he had found in the woods. He peered up at her over the top of the book.

"Why don't you… go knit a sweater or something?" he asked.

Mabel slid further down the side of the bed, her head nearly touching the floor. "I'm out of yarn and Grunkle Stan won't drive me into town to buy more."

Dipper sighed. "So…read a book or draw a picture or – I dunno, Mabel. You'll figure something out."

He returned to his reading, turning a page with a sort of finality. She wasn't going to get any more help out of him.

With a _humph_ , she let herself fall the rest of the way off the bed, turned the tumble into a somersault, and stood up. If she had to stay in this attic one second longer with her weird nerd brother and nothing to do she was going to _pop_.

But downstairs proved non-entertaining as well. There was nothing on TV but a 24-hour weather update ("Rain," the weatherman said flatly. "It's raining. And it will rain more.") and an infomercial show for old ladies' shoes. There wasn't enough of anything in the kitchen to cook with – and besides, Grunkle Stan had threatened to lock her in her room if there was a repeat of the "Burning Socks Incident."

In her defense, it was hard to judge correct cooking times on Stan's antique stove.

She finally wandered into the gift shop of the Mystery Shack.

It was empty. Well, empty of tourists. The day was far too rainy for anyone to want to get off a bus, and the day-trippers were scarce enough as it was. The only person in the shop was Stanford Pines, the Man of Mystery himself, phony eye patch and all.

"Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, hopping up onto the cash-register counter and peering over his shoulder. "I'm bored and Dipper's not helping. What are _you_ up to?"

Stan looked up. "Huh – what?" he slapped the yellow pad of paper he'd been scribbling on. "I'm trying to make money, what's it look like."

"It looks like…" Mabel tilted her head. "Math. Ick."

Stan sighed and pushed the pad away. "You have no idea. This stuff is like a foreign language. Spanish or something. Which I don't speak."

"Yes you do," she corrected him. "I heard you when you stubbed your toe yesterday."

"Cursing doesn't count, kid. Anyone can do that." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You say you're bored? 'Cause I've got displays that need dusting and signs that need hanging and that Were-badger display is starting to smell a bit—"

"Just kidding!" Mabel slid off the counter and darted toward the door that led into the museum proper. "Totally not bored just thought of something to do don't need a job see you later!"

She skidded to a halt inside the dim museum area and heaved a sigh of relief. "That was a close one," she muttered.

In the few weeks she'd been in Gravity Falls, Mabel hadn't really explored the Mystery Shack – the museum part, anyway. Oh, sure, Stan had given them the penny tour when they first got there (and charged them each a penny for it) but other than that, she had kept mostly to the house part of the building, and the gift shop.

She eyed a taxidermy squirrel doubtfully. The house and shop were much less… stiff.

Oh well – it was better than counting the knots in the attic's wooden beams (twenty eight) or organizing her socks alphabetically. Again.

She wandered through the haphazardly-placed exhibits, examining the hoop earring in the giant's ear display and trying to figure out if the Sascrotch was a gorilla in a pair of underwear, or an actual bigfoot caught midway through his morning routine.

Finally, she came to a collection of stones in a glass case.

The rocks caught her eye – back home, Mabel had a large and growing collection of pet rocks. Her favorite was one she'd found in a neighbor's garden that had a silly face painted on it, but she wasn't picky. Anything with an interesting shape or a sparkle was fair game, and this collection was right up her alley.

She tugged on the glass front of the display case, and it popped open with the snick of a releasing latch.

"I'm just looking," she promised herself, glancing up guiltily at the pterodac-gull that glared down at her from its taxidermy perch. "If Grunkle Stan minded people looking, he would have put a real lock on this. I mean, am I right or am I right?" She nodded, and pulled the door all the way open. "I'm always right."

Reaching inside, she wrapped her fingers around a large, roundish, blue-green stone on the end.

"Mabel!"

She jumped, snatching her hand back and slamming the case shut.

" _Ididn'tdoit_!" she yelped.

Grunkle Stan poked his head through the gift shop door. "Mabel, I need you to come man the postcard stand – we got a bus."

Heart racing, Mabel hurried back into the gift shop, forcing a smile for the carsick tourists that started trickling through. She laughed and joked and convinced people that postcards were the _perfect_ souvenir.

But the whole time, her attention was on the pocket of her skirt, which bounced heavily against her leg. Every once in a while, when no one was looking, her hand stole into the pocket, and her fingers brushed against a large, roundish, blue-green lump.


	2. Chapter 2

"I didn't mean to steal it!" Mabel wailed, pacing back and forth under the tall pines outside the Shack. The rain had let up, though the air was thick with the promise of more to come. It dripped through the needle-filled branches above and smacked to the earth with a dull sound. "It was instinct! Honest!"

She pulled the rock out of her pocket and gave it a narrow-eyed frown. "This is all your fault," she accused the fist-sized, bluish-green lump. "You hijacked me!"

"Mabel?"

Swiping the stone behind her, Mabel blinked up at Dipper, who was peering out the triangular attic window.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you… talking to a rock?"

"What? No – of course not. That would be ridiculous. Why would I be talking to a rock?" Mabel grinned her patented Innocent GrinTM and clutched the stupid rock behind her back.

"Right." Dipper sounded doubtful, but he disappeared inside and pulled the window shut after him.

Mabel spun around and glared at the rock. "This _is_ ridiculous," she said. "It's simple: I just have to put it back. It's just a rock. Grunkle Stan probably hasn't even noticed it missing yet."

Just then, there was a horrible yell from the Shack.

"Thieeeeef!"

Mabel winced, and shoved the rock back into her pocket. "Peanut brittle," she mumbled. "He noticed."

* * *

Stan was on the line to the police before Mabel even reached the shop.

"Yeah, Officer," he barked into the living room phone. "I need one of your guys down here, pronto."

Dipper, sitting at the table at the other end of the living room, didn't even look up from his journal. At least he was down here and not still holed up in a pile of Mabel's sweaters.

Stan listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

"Someone broke into the museum, that's what," he snarled.

Mabel tried to slip past, scooting nonchalantly through toward the museum. If she could just put the rock back before the cops came…

"Mabel, sweetie, stay out of there," Stan growled at her, placing a hand over the receiver. "I don't want you disturbing evidence."

The lump of pure evidence in her pocket felt heavier than ever, and Mabel opened her mouth to protest – but just then, Stan started speaking into the phone, describing the "horrible" damage to his "priceless" exhibits.

Mabel felt the rock in her pocket. She should give it to Stan – consequences or no consequences – before the cops got involved. She reached into her pocket and grasped the stone.

It wiggled in her fingers.

"Ah!" she yanked her hand out and staggered back.

Stan glanced back at her.

"Sorry!" Mabel exclaimed. "Sorry, sorry, sorry…" she backed out of the living room and sat down heavily on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to the attic.

Gingerly, she withdrew the rock from her pocket and rubbed its pebbly surface with her thumb.

It didn't move.

"Come on," she muttered to it. "If you're going to be weird, at least do it consistently."

A crack of thunder rumbled through the sky outside, and the rain started to fall again, rattling on the roof of the shack and gurgling in the drain pipes.

The rock twitched.

Mabel stuffed it back in her pocket and held her breath, as if Stan might have heard the silent wiggle of the rock. But his irate voice still sounded from the living room – apparently Sheriff Blubs wasn't convinced that the theft merited a police investigation.

She needed a place to do her own investigation in private. Dipper wouldn't be moving from his spot at the table for a while – not if the piles of papers stacked around him were any indication – so their attic bedroom should be safe.

She scurried upstairs and barricaded the door with a dusty steamer trunk. Then, plopping cross-legged onto her bed, she pulled out the rock again and dropped it onto the quilt in front of her.

"Ok, rock." She squinted at it. "Do your worst."

As if it had heard her, the bluish-grey stone twitched – just a tiny bit. Mabel sucked in a breath.

"Can you hear me?" she asked.

The stone didn't respond.

Then it rocked.

Then it… squeaked?

Mabel's eyes went wide – suddenly, she understood. "You're an egg!" she whispered.

It only made sense. What _didn't_ make sense was why it was hatching now – why it was hatching at all. Who knew how long it had been in that cabinet in Stan's museum, under a coating of dust, waiting for…for what?

Those were the sorts of questions Dipper would ask. "But I'm not Dipper," she muttered. And there were more important things to think about – like, what _exactly_ was she hatching here?

A crack appeared in the pebbled surface of the egg. The whole thing was a bit too long to look like a real egg, and who ever heard of an egg that was bluish-green and had the texture of a chunk of concrete?

But it was definitely hatching, which made it definitely an egg.

Mabel leaned in close, her hands clenched into tight fists in her lap. In third grade, her class had hatched a clutch of chicken eggs in a big, lighted warmer. They'd been lucky, and the eggs had hatched during school instead of in the dark of the night, and they'd gotten to watch as the little chicks pecked and chipped their way into the world.

Several of the boys had wanted to break the shells for the chicks, to make the hatching faster. But Mrs. Tulley had pulled them back.

"If they don't hatch on their own, they could die," she had told them. "Breaking out of the shell makes them stronger – if you try to help them, you might hurt them."

Now, Mabel's fingers itched to pry away at that crack in the stone – in the egg shell. But she resisted, barely daring to breathe as the egg twitched and the crack widened.

A tiny piece of shell pressed outward, and wiggled up and down, pressed against from behind.

Mabel absently tucked a piece of hair into her mouth and nibbled at it.

Another small bit cracked loose, and the first one tumbled to the bedspread. Catching her breath, Mabel touched the chip with her finger.

The egg squeaked again.

"Come on," she encouraged it. "You've got this! It's a great world out here – promise. And when it's not great, there's glitter to help."

As though cheered on by her voice, the egg wobbled more strongly, and with a soft _snap_ , the crack spread all the way down the length of the shell.

A tiny, pointed nose poked through the hole, and paused, as if catching its breath. Mabel caught her breath. It looked like a snake or a lizard. She wasn't exactly fond of snakes and lizards. Not _afraid_ of them, exactly, but she liked them much better when they weren't hatching out of weird eggs on _her_ bed,.

It pushed forward, its head sliding all the way out of the shell and – yes, that was a distinctly reptilian, arrow-shaped head. Mabel scooted backward – just a little bit.

A clawed foot nudged out of the shell under the creature's chin and started pushing at the eggshell, breaking off bits that tumbled to the wooden floor of the attic with a ticking sound. It opened its mouth and squeaked like a baby bird.

With a heave, it shrugged its shoulders through the gap in the shell, breaking off more bits as it did.

Mabel gasped.

Though wet and goopy looking, the creature had lumpy wings on its back.

"A dragon," she whispered. "An actual, real, live, not-eating-me-yet dragon. This is the best day of my life!"

"Mabel?"

She was across the room before Dipper had even finished saying her name. Leaning against the barricade trunk she called out, "Not here!"

"Yes, you are. I heard you."

"Hi, you've reached Mabel's Automated Answering Service," Mabel shouted at the closed door. "Go away and leave a message later."

"Mabel, let me in – I need my—"

"Later, Dipper!" She looked around wildly for an excuse that didn't involve hatching dragons. "I'm…I'm…sick. I'm sick."

"Sick? Do I need to get Stan?" The way annoyance was instantly replaced with concern made her feel a little bit guilty, but she glanced back at the little greeny-blue bundle on the bed and pushed the feeling aside.

"No, I'll be fine, just – don't come in."

Dipper was quiet for a long moment. "If you say so," he said finally.

She heard him walk away, and down the steps. Slumping a little in relief, she heaved a sigh.

"Close call, Squeaker," she said, climbing back onto the bed.

The little dragon was wriggling the last of his – very long, very snaky – tail out of the shell. He (and it was definitely a he. She wasn't sure how she knew but there was no doubt in her mind that the little dragon was male) tilted his head at her and regarded her with eyes the color of sapphires.

Mabel reached out a hand and let him sniff her finger. His skin was covered in delicate scales the size of a baby's fingernail, and they were slowly turning an iridescent green as they dried, flickering in the lightning that lit up the stormy sky outside.

He sniffed at her hand, looking up at her with his sparkling eyes. Then – too quickly for her to react – he scuttled into her lap and curled up on the hem of her sweater.

In seconds, he was sleeping.

Mabel stared down in wonder, biting her cheeks to keep from squealing, at the kitten-sized bundle in her lap.

"I have a baby dragon," she whispered. Then, slightly louder. "I _have_ a baby _dragon_."

Let Dipper keep his moldy old book. Maybe Gravity Falls wasn't so boring after all.

OoO

* * *

OoO

Hey all, sorry for the missed week. Between coming down with a bug and the inch of ice on the roads around here last week, I didn't get near a computer last Friday. But we should be back to our regularly scheduled ficcing this week, so - enjoy! And leave a comment if you liked it - I'm curious to know what people think.  
See you next week!

~Essie


	3. Chapter 3

In her twelve-almost-thirteen years, Mabel had cared for many baby creatures. Puppies, kittens, chicks, tadpoles, _actual_ babies… She was no stranger to the outfit.

But baby dragons were, apparently, nothing like puppies, kittens, chicks, or tadpoles. And they were _certainly_ nothing like actual babies.

For starters, there were the fireballs. Every time the little dracling sneezed, or hiccoughed, or discovered something new – so basically, every thirty seconds or so – he would poof out a little fireball. Nothing to big, nothing Mabel couldn't handle, but there were sure to be questions about the scorch marks on the floor and the fact that the whole attic smelled like a woodstove.

And then there was the hoarding. Ten minutes after the dracling – Squeaker, as Mabel promptly dubbed him – had hatched out of his rock-egg and curled up in her lap for a nap, he bolted awake so quickly that Mabel let out her own squeak of surprise.

As quick as a silverfish swarming across the floor, Squeaker darted across the room and started nosing around in the pile of discarded sweaters Dipper had been reading in earlier.

Mabel slipped off the bed and scooted toward the pile. "What'cha looking for?" she asked. She gasped. "Do you like sweaters too? _We can be sweater pals!_ "

Just then, Squeaker let out a little _mrrr_ of triumph and pounced on a brass-tipped ballpoint pen Dipper had left behind.

"Shiny stuff?" Mabel breathed. " _Even better_!"

She scurried around the room, scooping up small shiny objects – a metal button, an earring, a knitting needle missing its mate, a bit of quartz from Dipper's desk, a loose screw – and deposited them in front of Squeaker.

"Shiny stuff!" she proclaimed. "Whop, whop!"

Squeaker looked up from worrying at the brass pen tip with his tiny, toothless mouth. His eyes glittered with the reflection of the tiny hoard, and his wings – now less goopy and more like delicate parchment – lifted in excitement.

 _Poof_.

A tiny rush of flame flared from the tiny dragon, and he started dancing – a floppy, haphazard, pitter-pattering dance – around the little pile of treasure.

Mabel couldn't help it. She squealed, long and loud.

"We're going to be _best friends,_ " she declared. " _Best. Friends._ "

But the one thing that differentiated Squeaker from every other baby critter that Mabel had ever come into contact with was food.

Or rather, the lack of it.

Sneaking down into the kitchen – careful to avoid being seen by Dipper, who was outside scribbling furiously in his notebook, or Stan, who was taping the entire front door in yellow _POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS_ tape – Mabel gathered up everything she thought a baby dragon might eat.

Leftover burger meat. Cheese. An egg. Milk. Bread. Some fried chicken from Greasy's Diner.

Squeaker wasn't interested in any of it. He gnawed at the chicken for a minute, dragging the partially-eaten wing across the attic floor and leaving a spotty trail of chicken grease behind, but quickly lost interest when he spotted a dime under the bed. He didn't even look at the other offerings.

Mabel frowned, and pulled out a notebook of her own. And a clicky pen, which helped her think.

 _THINGS SQUEAKER MIGHT EAT_ , she scrawled over the top of the page.

(She added a cheeseburger sticker for illustrative purposes.)

 _-Burger_

 _-Cheese_

 _-Egg_

 _-Milk_

 _-Bread_

 _-Fried chicken from Greasy's Diner_

She drew a line through the first five entries and put a question mark next to the last.

 _-Crickets_

 _-Beetles_

 _-Hot coals_

 _-Mice_

She clicked the pen thoughtfully, and watched Squeaker nose the dime over to his small stash of shiny belongings. The little dracling curled up around the pile, nose-tip to tail and let out a steaming sigh, his eyes closing in slow contentment.

 _-Fruit_

 _-Gnomes_

 _-Fish_

 _-Acorns_

 _-Grass_

 _-Pancakes_

This was going nowhere fast. She could try a million things but if Squeaker needed motor oil and chocolate sauce and she was trying fish and gnomes, her new little dragon friend would starve to death.

"I _won't_ let that happen," she swore. Dipper would probably know what baby dragons ate. Dipper knew lots of pointless information.

"But… I don't really want to tell him," she admitted to Squeaker, who opened his jeweled eyes to blink at her. "I mean yeah, _some_ day, sure, but… it's kind of nice to have a secret, ya know?"

Especially when that secret was the size of a robin, obsessed over shiny things, and smelled just faintly like burning marshmallows.

 _"But_ ," Mabel continued thoughtfully, her gaze moving to the triangle-shaped window between the beds. "But I bet Dipper's _journal_ would have something about dragons. I mean – it had stuff about zombies and gnomes and stuff, right?"

She wrinkled her nose and hastened to reassure Squeaker. "Not that you're like Jeff or anything," she said. "Just – there's a lot of pages in that book. There's gotta be _something_ about dragons, right?"

Squeaker's only reaction was to go back to dozing.

"Alright," Mabel said, turning to a fresh page in the notebook and clicking her pen rapidly. "Operation: Borrow Dipper's Weird Old Journal is _go_."

* * *

Her chance came just before dinner.

"Dipper!" Grunkle Stan hollered from the museum. Sheriff Blubs was standing on the front porch, sipping a coffee and "supervising" while his deputy – Mabel still hadn't caught the deputy's name, Darland? Durmont? Dudley? – poked things with a pencil and scratched meaningless doodles on a yellow legal pad.

Stan poked his head out the door. " _Dipper_!"

Mabel's brother came around the corner of the building, stuffing the red journal into his vest. "What, Grunkle Stan?" he asked, his voice irritated.

Mabel was sitting in the empty half of the attic, curled up on the window seat with Squeaker playing with an unbent paperclip in her lap.

She peered down at the top of Dipper's head.

"You and Wendy are gonna go into town and get pizzas," Stan ordered. Mabel didn't miss the way Dipper stood a bit straighter at the mention of pizza. Or maybe it was the mention of Wendy. It could go either way at this point.

"Now," Stan continued. "There's money on the table in the kitchen. I know _exactly_ what the pizza cost and I've left _exactly_ that much money there. You hear me?"

Dipper nodded and rushed inside.

Carefully depositing Squeaker inside a barricaded playpen made of coat hangers and knitting needles driven into the cracks between floorboards, Mabel hurried to the stairway.

She peered over the banister and watched Dipper rush into the kitchen, thump something onto the chair, grab the jingling change on the table, and dash out again. Dimly, she heard Wendy's voice calling, "Come on, man!"

And then the Shack was silent.

Quiet as a cat, Mabel scurried down to the kitchen and looked inside.

" _Bingo_!" she shouted. Dipper's journal was tucked safely under the kitchen table on the seat of one of the chairs. She pulled it out and retreated up the attic stairs.

"Now we'll figure out what you like to eat," she said to Squeaker, who mewed pathetically until she scooped him up and let him curl up against her shoulder. Returning to her seat in the deep-set window, Mabel propped the journal open in front of her and started paging through it.

"Floating eyeballs, vampire bats, gnomes, cursed doors, weird codey things… More weird codey things…"

Page after page flipped past, and Mabel understood less and less of it. The handwriting deteriorated, the sketches became darker and less detailed, and the margins started to fill with strange doodles and scribbles and vague warnings.

And there were no dragons.

Finally she slammed the journal shut with a bang that poofed a cloud of dust from the old pages and startled Squeaker awake.

"This journal is _wack_ ," she complained. "The guy who wrote this must have been totally bonkers crazy. And there's nothing that can help _us_."

She looked down at Squeaker, who met her gaze with his glittering eyes and squeaked.

His stomach rumbled.

"Oh no," Mabel moaned. "Oh no, no, no, no. Ok, come on." She slipped the dracling up the sleeve of her sweater and stood up. "We're going to find you something to eat if I have to go get lost in the woods to do it."

She glanced out the window. Her own stomach growled hungrily.

"And maybe we'll get it done before Dipper gets back with that pizza."

* * *

 **A/N** : So. Who's not ok? THIS GIRL.

Gah. Yeah, seriously, people, I'm still not recovered from that finale. I don't think I will be for a while. It was just so perfect and horrid and wonderful and BILL and STAN and gaaaaa WENDY'S HAT.

Ok.

Ok. I'm fine.

Anyway, I just wanted to take this chance to say that, even though the show is technically over, I don't plan on bowing out of this fandom any time soon. We could always use a few more sunny summer days in Gravity Falls, right? And I'll be happy to take ya'll along with me. And besides the canon-consistent stories, the finale opened up so many possible worlds of story to explore - this fandom ain't goin' anywhere. You betcha. :D

Thanks for reading - oh, and if you leave a comment with something Squeaker should collect, I'll add it to the next chapter. :D

Til next time,

~Essie


	4. Chapter 4

Squeaker didn't eat crickets, ants, or caterpillars. He showed no interest in the squirrels chattering in the trees above, or the various small animals that skittered through the underbrush. He didn't even seem aware of birds. He nibbled the grass Mabel tried to tempt him with, but got distracted by a shard of bottle glass half-buried in the driveway and – after digging it up – wouldn't let it out of his mouth long enough to investigate anything else Mabel tried to offer him.

The sun was beginning to set, setting the pines aflame with an orange light that filtered through the needles and glowed on the forest floor. Behind her, Mabel heard the doors of the sheriff's car open and shut, and then the engine as the two officers drove away.

She slumped against a fallen log, propping her chin on her hands and watching with a frown as Squeaker took the glass shard out of his mouth and began to turn it in his dexterous paws, watching how it caught the dying light.

"I've got to find something to feed you," she told him sadly.

He looked up at her and blinked. Then, grabbing the shiny bit of glass in his jaw again, he scurried over the log and up her arm, perching on her shoulder. His wings, completely dry now, fluttered against her ear with a light rasp.

Mabel giggled. "Come on, Squeaker," she said. "Let's go back. Maybe you like pizza." She could stick him in the makeshift playpen again during supper, and sneak some leftovers up afterwards. By the time she reached the Shack and slipped upstairs, the dracling was fast asleep, and didn't even stir when she laid him inside the sturdy barrier of hangers and knitting needles. Placing the glass shard and a few other shiny toys next to the sleeping dragon, Mabel let her fingers trail over his velvet-smooth hide.

"Mabel," Dipper's voice floated up the stairs. "Are you feeling better? Stan's got pizza for dinner."

Mabel skipped down the stairs and greeted her brother with a grin and a sloppy hug that nearly knocked Dipper to the floor. "Never better," she declared. "Pizza-palooza, here I come!"

Stan was even more grouchy than usual during supper, muttering imprecations against the Gravity Falls police department through mouthfuls of the cheesy pizza, but Mabel ignored him, keeping up a steady stream of chatter.

"…and that's when we figured out that bubble gum doesn't actually make you cooler." She took a big swig of cola. "It just makes you look cooler. Which is basically the same thing!"

Dipper raised an eyebrow at her. "I seem to remember there were more fireworks involved in this the first time I heard the story."

Mabel waved a dismissive hand. "I left out the boring parts for Grunkle Stan," she said.

Something clanked upstairs, and she froze, hand still in a flip-floppy gesture of nonchalance.

Dipper took another bite of pizza, and Stan just grunted.

Neither of them had heard.

"Ya know what?" Mabel said, "I think I'm going to finish my pizza upstairs. Alone. By myself. Totally without anyone else around."

Stan's furrowed face furrowed further. "You feelin' ok, kiddo?"

"Just fine," she replied brightly, hopping out of her chair and grabbing her plate. She stuck another slice of cheese pizza on top of the half-finished one already there, and flashed her brightest, most innocent grin. "Everyone knows pizza always tastes better on the second floor! That's why they eat it on Mount Everest. Altitude is the best topping!"

Then she dashed out before they could reply. Dipper's eyes were going from wide-and-bewildered to narrow-and-thoughtful even as she ducked around the corner, but that didn't matter.

Squeaker eating mattered.

She pushed open the attic door and stopped in her tracks.

The dracling hung from the ceiling by his toes, using his snout to carefully position the last piece of a shining tower of metal and glass that reached from the floor between the two bunks to the horizontal rafters overhead.

Mabel's mouth dropped open.

Coat hangers, bits of string, knitting needles, crochet hooks, pens, necklaces and jewelry bits, paper clips, two hand mirrors, a belt with a shiny buckle, six fishing lures, chains of metal washers strung on tinsel, the horn from a phonograph, several of Grunkle Stan's clunky gold old man chains, and Mabel's entire collection of sparkling colored pencils all twined and wrapped and stacked together to create…

"…the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Mabel breathed. It was a tower of glorious glitter, a monument to all things shining and good and metallic. Shaped vaguely like the Eiffel Tower – or maybe more like the cell phone tower that Squeaker could see rising above the trees outside the attic window – the structure looked as sturdy as steel and as fragile as glass.

Squeaker fluttered down from the rafters, using his wings more as speed control than flight mechanisms. He scuttled across the floor toward Mabel's feet, chirruping proudly.

She dropped to her knees, scratching the little dragon behind his floppy, leaf-shaped ear. "It's amazing, Squeaks," she praised him. "And look what I brought you!"

Setting the plate on the floor, she picked up one of the pizza slices and waved it temptingly under the dracling's nose.

His eyes widened, swirling in excitement, and he snapped at the cheesy goodness. A long string of cheese stretched out between the dracling's mouth and the pizza slice, and he vibrated in excitement, his hind end waggling like a kitten about to pounce.

"Don't let him eat that!"

Mabel jumped and nearly threw the pizza across the attic.

Dipper pointed at Squeaker. "Take that away from him!"

He paused, and blinked. As if it suddenly struck him what he was looking at, he froze, finger outstretched toward Squeaker, who was also frozen and staring up at this new stranger, cheese still hanging from his jaw. Mabel swallowed, and Dipper blinked furiously.

Then he asked:

"Is that… A dragon?"


	5. Chapter 5

Mabel slumped back on her heels and sighed. "Yeah, this is a dragon," she said. "His name's Squeaker and he's mine." She shot a fierce glare at Dipper, who was still staring at the little dragon in wide-eyed astonishment.

Squeaker, apparently realizing that this interloper was no threat to him or his pizza, started to chew the cheesy bite that hung out both sides of his jaw.

That snapped Dipper out of his shock. "You can't let him eat that," he exclaimed. "Reptiles don't have the digestive systems to handle dairy products."

Mabel started to pull the pizza away, but Squeaker protested with a pathetic squawk that was almost a whine. "Awww," she said. "See? He really wants it."

"Mabel, remember that time you tried to eat a package of rhinestones because you wanted to?"

Mabel thought. "Yeah…they were so _shiny_ …"

"And remember how we had to go to the emergency room and Mom and Dad couldn't decide whether to be worried or laugh and the doctors thought our whole family was crazy?"

"What's your point?"

"Humans aren't made to digest rhinestones. And reptiles aren't made to digest cheese." Dipper spread his hands wide in entreaty. "You could really hurt him."

With a sigh, Mabel tugged the pizza away from the little dragon and pried the bite out of his mouth. She looked up at her brother, then down at Squeaker, then at the shimmering tower of shiny, and then back at Dipper.

"You weren't supposed to find out about Squeaker," she said, her voice drooping. Her shoulders slumped, and she scooped the dracling into her lap, setting aside the plate of pizza. Her secret wasn't her secret anymore – not that she didn't want Dipper to know about cool stuff, but it had been nice that there was a cool stuff that was just her cool stuff.

Dipper dropped to his knees beside her, and the amazement was back in his eyes. "Where in the world did he come from?" he asked.

"Um…" Mabel hesitated. "Well – you know how some stuff kind of… disappeared from Grunkle Stan's museum?"

"No. Way."

"Way. One of those rocks on display was actually an egg. I just wanted to look at it, but then I got startled and it kind of ended up in my pocket and then I couldn't get it back before Stan noticed and then Squeaker hatched and—"

"Wait, wait, wait." Dipper held up a hand. "You watched a dragon hatch? Oh, man - Mabel, I am so jealous!"

She managed a grin, the disappointment of Dipper finding out fading slightly at the pure envy in his voice. He pulled the red-covered journal from his vest and began to flip through it.

"I don't remember seeing anything about dragons in the journal…"

"Don't bother," Mabel said, scratching Squeaker on the head. "I already looked."

Dipper snapped his head up. "You looked in my journal?"

"It's not like it's your diary or something," she protested. "And it did help us with the gnomes, so I thought there might be something."

"But Mabel, it's mine. I don't go through your stuff and steal… I dunno, yarn or anything."

"You did for that wacko booby trap you set."

"It was a werewolf trap, and I asked first."

"Oh. Right."

Dipper sighed. "It's ok," he said. "I mean, I guess I understand wanting to find the answers. The journal is pretty good for that. Still, I wish you'd asked first."

Mabel watched Squeaker bat at the end of her shoe lace. Dipper sounded exactly like how she felt about him discovering the dracling – something that had been just hers, and wasn't anymore. The difference was that he'd found out on accident. She sneaked his journal on purpose.

"You're right," she relented. "Sorry, Dip-dop."

He shrugged and she knew he was still stung, but he just said. "I shouldn't have left it sitting out, I guess. But there's nothing in here about dragons?"

"No," she said, returning to the problem at hand. "And I don't know what he needs to eat. He hasn't eaten anything yet."

"What all have you tried?"

She dug in her pocket and pulled out the list. "Everything that's scratched off."

"So…everything."

"Yeah."

Dipper ran his finger down the list. He tapped one of the first items. "Maybe it's a long shot," he said. "But I think we should try the cricket thing again."

"Ugh," Mabel ducked her head and nuzzled at Squeaker, who chirped and rubbed his snout on her chin. "Do you know how hard it was to catch even one cricket?"

Dipper jerked a thumb at the window. Outside, the sun had set and a light rain pattered against the window pane. "That was earlier," he said. "Crickets are nocturnal. There'll be lots of them out there now."

"Why crickets? Why not try chicken again – he kind of liked the chicken. Didn't you, Squeakums? Hmm?" Mabel held the dracling up and kissed his nose. His tail waggled happily, and he burped a little puff of brimstone-scented smoke.

"Because pet lizards eat crickets all the time. And he's kind of a lizard. A…lizard with fire."

Mabel pushed herself to her feet, tucking Squeaker into the baggy sleeve of her sweater. He curled up inside with his head poking out, and she felt his stomach rumble again.

She giggled. "Let's go catch some crickets, then," she said, pulling Dipper to his feet. "My baby dragon is hungry."

"You have no idea how cool it sounds that you can say that."

Mabel glanced down at the glittering eyes of Squeaker and shook her head. "Oh, I have a little bit of an idea."

* * *

"Eat it, eat it, eat it," Mabel chanted softly, pushing a dead cricket in front of Squeaker's nose. It had taken them all of five minutes to find one – well, ok, it had taken Dipper all of five minutes and that was just because he was a boy and everyone knows boys and bugs understand each other and also Mabel hadn't thought to check under the front porch earlier.

Squeaker nosed the insect with interest.

He narrowed his eyes at it.

The twins held their breath.

 _Slurp_. With a flick of his tongue and a catlike swallow – throwing his head in the air and gulping the cricket down his throat – the cricket disappeared. Squeaker let out a happy squawk and pranced around Mabel's knees as if he had slain and devoured the mighty cricket monster himself.

"You did it!" Mabel exclaimed.

Dipper rubbed his nose with a satisfied sigh. "Yep," he said. "Just a matter of putting my keen powers of investigation and observation togeth—"

"You ate that whole bug!"

"You're not talking to me, are you."

She glanced up. "Sorry – were you talking?"

Dipper grimaced. "I guess we should find him some more?"

Suddenly, Squeaker froze, his entire body going stiff mid-prance. Only his eyes – glinting yellow with the reflection of the porch light – narrowed.

 _Zip_.

He darted forward and pounced on something in the grass. When he looked up, satisfaction practically dripping from his every scale, a cricket leg twitched in the corner of his mouth.

"He caught one on his own!" Mabel squealed. "He's so _smart_!"

"Huh," Dipper said, his voice impressed. "Learns fast, doesn't he."

Mabel pointed up. "Um, did you _see_ that masterwork of artistic beauty and shininess he built upstairs?"

"He did that?" Dipper's eyes were wide, and Mabel felt a mother-hen puff of pride for her tiny charge.

"Every bit," she said.

"Huh," Dipper grunted. "That's…that's really cool."

They watched from the porch as Squeaker stalked the grass in front of the Mystery Shack, catching crickets in the bright yellow glow of the porch light. Above them, bugs fluttered and pinged off the bulb and cicadas buzzed in the pines around the clearing. The air was heavy with the promise of heavy rain in the night, but for now it had slowed to a light drizzle that sparkled in the light and imitated the fireflies that flickered in the trees and undergrowth.

"Ya know what?" Mabel said, leaning back on her hands and watching Squeaker.

"What?"

"This turned out to be a not-half-bad day after all."

"Do you think we should tell Stan about – what did you call him again?"

"Squeaker."

"Should we tell Stan about Squeaker?"

Mabel sighed. "Can we decide in the morning? I was just starting to enjoy this."

Dipper nudged her with his shoulder. "You can't fool me," he said. "You're enjoying all of this and you have been all day."

With a grin, Mabel nudged him back – harder. "Yeah," she agreed. "You're right."

And in that moment, tomorrow didn't matter.

It was just her and her twin and her dragon.

Speaking of which…

Mabel squinted at Squeaker, who was rolling around in the wet grass, his belly taut and round and stuffed with unfortunate insects.

"Dipper," she said slowly. "Does he look… bigger to you?"


	6. Chapter 6

By the next morning, Squeaker was the size of a small dog.

By lunch, he was a _large_ dog.

By afternoon, Mabel knew she had a major problem on her hands.

"He keeps outgrowing it," she complained, her knitting needles flashing in her hands. She'd unraveled and reworked the sweater three times since starting, and the maroon yarn was starting to look a little frazzled. For that matter, _Mabel_ was starting to look a little frazzled.

"Mabel, we've got to do something – he's getting too big for the Shack!" Dipped exclaimed from where he was pinned under Squeaker's tail. His shirt was singed from one of the dragon's overzealous sneezes, and he pushed the dragon's tail – nearly three feet long now – away and stood. "We have to at least get him outside before he gets so big he breaks through the attic floor."

Mabel dropped her half-knitted project into her lap with a sigh. "But where can we take him?" she asked. "If Stan sees him, he'll end up on display, and if anyone else sees him—" she shuddered, the possibilities too horrible to name aloud.

Dipper pulled out his journal and flipped through the pages quickly. "There's a map of the area around the house in here somewhere—aha!" Spinning the book around, he tapped the page eagerly. "See this? Caves! He'll love it there – and no one will be able to find him."

"I dunno, Dipper…" Mabel pulled Squeaker's head – now the size of a small pony's – over her shoulder and stroked his snout. "What if he doesn't like caves?"

"He's a _dragon_ , Mabel. They always live in caves. Or abandoned cities inside mountains, but that's basically just a glorified cave. He'll love it."

Mabel met Squeaker's gaze. The dragon blinked back at her placidly, his hot breath like a hair dryer on her face. "Well…ok. But we have to wait until Stan's distracted."

Dipper grinned and set aside the journal. "Leave _that_ to me."

* * *

Twenty minutes, three smoke bombs, and one busload of very confused tourists later, the twins were speeding through the woods, Squeaker close behind. The dracling seemed to relish the speed, and he spread his wings as they ran.

The woods were wet, the rain of the last few days having soaked through even the thick needled coverage of the evergreen trees, leaving the undergrowth and fallen leaves of autumns past a dark, shiny layer of moistness that slipped and squished under their feet as they ran. Mabel could feel bits of mud and vegetation sticking to her legs, kicked up by either Dipper or Squeaker. The tree branches overhead dripped down cold, pine-scented droplets that plunked on her head like sloppy kisses and – once – got her square in the nose.

When the reached the cave, Squeaker snorted and pranced about, puffing excited bouts of smoke and steam into the humid air while the twins leaned on the rock walls surrounding the cave and caught their breath.

"I haven't… moved that much in days," Dipper panted.

"Not since Soos set your Gametendo on fire," Mabel agreed. She straightened and heaved a sigh. "Ah – the glorious frazzle of humidity." She pointed at her head with a grin. Between the run and the moisture in the air, her hair was a mass of frizz – almost curly, instead of the usual wave.

"That's nothing," Dipper grinned. "Check this out." He whipped off his cap, and his hair exploded into something resembling a giant dandelion puff.

Squeaker gave a squawk of dismay and scrambled back from Dipper's unexpected hair so quickly that he tripped over his own tail. Then, giving Dipper a reproachful look, he puffed a tiny jet of flame right at the offending head.

"Whoa!" Dipper ducked.

Mabel snickered, and pulled her frizz into a ponytail. "Good one, Squeaks," she praised the dragon, patting his snout in approval. "If I could breath fire, I'd totally do that too. After I roasted marshmallows and hot dogs, anyway."

She peered inside the small cave. The ceiling was only a little higher than her head, and it didn't go back very far. The floor was sandy, with patches of bare stone that had collected little piles of twigs and leaves over the years. But overall, it was clean and – in contrast to the rest of the wood – dry.

"What do you think?" she asked the dragon.

Squeaker, as always hesitant about new things, poked his head inside the opening of the cave.

He waffled and sniffed, and padded inside, his toenails clicking against the bare stone while his tail swept through the sand with a rasping noise. His snout snuffled around in the drifted leaves and rattled around the bits of gravel, and then – with a sigh and a _thunk_ – he collapsed onto the floor and grunted, as if to say, _This is mine now._

"Told you he'd like it," Dipper bragged. "Told you reading all those fantasy books wasn't a waste of time."

"That's still debatable," Mabel said. But she planted her hands on her hips and surveyed Squeaker's new domain with pleasure. "But thanks anyway."

Dipper nudged her elbow with his. "Are you going to miss him?" he asked softly.

"Psh." Mabel waved a dismissive hand in Dipper's face. "Why would I miss him? I mean, he's right here. I can come visit any time."

Dipper frowned. "He's getting bigger all the time, Mabel," he said cautiously. "When he's full grown, he may not exactly want visitors. I mean – dragons are dangerous. He's big, getting bigger, breathes fire, and thinks he's still small enough to fit in your lap. Even if he didn't want to hurt you—"

"He'd never want to hurt me!" Mabel threw her arms around Squeaker's neck and hugged him tight. He made a purring sound in his throat and rolled his eyes happily, snuffling at her sweater sleeves in hope of a snack. "He loves me – he probably thinks I'm his mama!"

"Even if he didn't _want_ to hurt you," Dipper continued, stubborn, "He could on accident."

Just then, Squeaker sneezed – hard. The damp leaves in front of the cave sparked and sizzled, their edges turning black and curling as the flames flickered over them. Dipper jumped back, landing on his rear in the wet undergrowth. Mabel yelped, yanking her legs back as her skirt singed along the edge where Squeaker's nose was resting next to her leg.

"See?!" Dipper exclaimed, scrabbling to his feet. "He can't help it, he's just—"

"I'll show _you_ smoke bombs!" an irate voice shouted from the forest.

The dragon jumped to his feet and darted back, further into the cave, leaving Mabel and Dipper standing in the entrance with a pile of smoking undergrowth as an irate figure stomped out of the woods.

"You think you can just chase off my biggest busload of paying customers of the day and vanish?" Stan demanded, tramping into the clearing and waving his cane at the twins. "The biggest mystery at the Mystery Shack today is _where am I going to find the money for all those refunds?_ You want to explain that to—"

He stopped, his eyes suddenly fixing on something over Mabel's shoulder.

She held up a hand, "Grunkle Stan – this is not what you think."

"It's not?" he grunted, blinking and rubbing at one eye as if maybe he'd just gotten a big chunk of whimsy stuck in the corner. "Because I _think_ that's a dragon behind you."

She glanced over her shoulder at Squeaker, who was cautiously nosing forward, snuffling past her hair at the newcomer.

"Totally not a dragon," she declared. "This is obviously a… an overgrown woodpecker. Alligator. A wooligator."

"Nice try, kiddo," Stan said. "Heck – I might have to try that in the Shack. But _that_ ," He pointed at Squeaker, "Is most certainly a dragon."

"Can't be," Dipper protested, moving in front of Mabel and Squeaker both. "Because dragons are magical. Supernatural. And you said there's nothing magic or supernatural in these woods."

"Maybe not in the woods," Stan squinted at them. "But there certainly is in that cave."

Mabel sighed, and, wrapping an arm around Squeaker's neck and scratching his cheek, she led the dracling out of the cave.

"His name's Squeaker," she said, her heart sinking. She wasn't sure what Stan would do about the dragon – let alone where he'd come from – but there was obviously no hiding it now. "I hatched him. Out of one of the rocks from the museum. It wasn't actually a rock – it was an egg."

Stan blinked. Once, twice.

"Well," he said at last. "That explains why the guy from Romania chased me through the airport."

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hey guys – I'm alive! Sorry it's been so long since I posted. This hiatus was entirely unplanned, and I do ask you to forgive me. The good news is the _reason_ for the hiatus, which is this: I finished my most recent novel! _Goblintown_ is a middle-grade adventure about an inventor and a reluctant heir to a steam-engine manufacturing company who accidentally create what basically amounts to a magical weapon of mass destruction. The only way to undo their mistake is to take the creation to the only beings capable of destroying magic: humans. But it's been generations since anyone has ventured to the human's surface world, and armies of trolls, starving hordes of rats, and giant spiders lay in their way. Will Asher and Gil be able to make it to the surface – and once there, will they be able to complete their quest? :D Well… you'll just have to wait until it's published (which…may be a few years. This draft is _rough_ ) to find out!

Anyway, that's what I spent the last month-plus on, so I _do_ have an excuse – and a good one! – for abandoning this fic for so long. However, I'm back now, and there's only this chapter and one more to post! Next up in the queue is another good old fashioned mystery (sorry Mabel, but this solid string of cuteness is _ridiculously_ hard to keep up, lol): _The Haunted Staircase_

When two elderly ladies stop by the Mystery Shack and offer to sell – cheap! – a bunch of old, weird artifacts to Stan, he and the twins take a vacation to go dig through their attics and cellars. But once the trio arrives at Carson Manor, the two old ladies admit something else: the mansion is haunted! Dipper is thrilled – until mysterious threats begin to appear around the house. Obviously, someone – or some _thing_ – doesn't want them investigating. But why? And when Stan goes missing, the twins find themselves in a race against time to solve the mystery before the Ghost of the Manor disappears with Stan – for good!


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** So…I lied. I said this was going to be the last chapter, but it didn't quite move as fast as I'd expected. So yay! One more chapter – consider this a bonus round. :D

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

The twins sat on either side of Stan on a log outside the cave. Squeaker, now content to pounce at crickets in the undergrowth, happily ignored them.

"I wasn't even supposed to be _in_ Romania," Stan said. "I was on my way from Chile to Canada by way of Russia but there was a big storm that got us off course and we had a three day layover in Bucharest. I only picked up the rock because I thought it was cool looking – I didn't realize it was anything special. There was a guy who came after me, shouting something in this weird language—"

"Probably Romanian," Dipper pointed out.

Stan grunted. "Anyway, I couldn't understand a word he was saying. And the airport people just laughed at him, so I figured he was just some crazy kook." He looked at Squeaker, whose snout was snuffling muddy ruts through the damp fallen leaves. "That rock – er, egg – has been on display in the Mystery Shack since pretty much day one. Thirty years, and it suddenly decides to hatch?"

Mabel leaned her head against her grunkle's shoulder and smiled at the dracling. "Maybe he was just waiting for a friend."

Dipper was scribbling furiously in his journal, frowning to himself. "It probably has something to do with heat," he said, tapping his chin with his pen. "And maybe something with a psychic resonance? I wonder if we could recreate—"

"Can it, kid," Stan grumped. "My day already has angry tourists and a dragon in it. I don't need your weirdo nerd-talk too."

Dipper looked up. "But what are we going to do about him?" he asked. "He's getting bigger by the hour and soon he'll be too big to hide. He can't stay here."

Mabel jumped up and stood between Squeaker and her brother, arms spread wide as if to keep Dipper away. "You can't take him!" she exclaimed. "Dipper, don't you understand? He _needs_ me. I'm like his mother!"

As if in response, Squeaker came up behind Mabel and rubbed his head on her shoulder.

"Kid," Stan said, spreading his hands. "I hate to say it – but your brother has a point. I mean – that thing may be happy with crickets for now, but he's going to want something bigger soon. How're you going to feed him? Keep him a secret? Who even _knows_ how big he's going to get."

Mabel sat down on the ground and Squeaker sat beside her. She rubbed her cheek along the dracling's scaly one, feeling the smooth coolness against her face. "But…I love him," she said. "We have so much in common – shiny things, sweaters, shiny things…"

Dipper set aside his journal and came over, laying a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mabel," he said. "But you've got to know we're right. Right?"

Holding Squeaker's head in both hands – and it took both hands now, his head was the size of a football – Mabel stared deep into the dragon's sapphire eyes. They swirled with streaks of gold and green, and she suddenly felt how very small the woods behind the Shack were and how large a creature a dragon was. It wasn't so much his size – though Dipper was probably right, she knew, Squeaker still had a lot of growing to do – but more the _idea_ of a dragon. Dragons were for mountains and castles and mystical islands in the sea… Not for tiny caves in the backyard of tourist traps in the Oregon forests.

She heaved a deep sigh, tears stinging at her nose and the back of her throat.

"Yeah," she said, letting Squeaker pull away and watching as he leaped at something in the leaves. "I know you're right."

"Sorry, kiddo," Stan said, standing. "Hey – I'll go make a call about this, and then we'll go to the petting zoo. Sound like a deal? I hear they've got an eight-legged cow."

Mabel looked down at her hands in her lap. "Okay," she said.

Dipper patted her shoulder awkwardly. "I really am sorry, Mabel," he said as Stan headed back through the woods toward the Shack. "But Squeaker doesn't belong here."

Mabel didn't look up. "Yeah."

But even knowing Stan and Dipper were right didn't make her feel better about it.

* * *

Apparently, Stan had connections.

When it began to get dark, Mabel and Dipper made their way back to the Shack, leaving Squeaker curled up asleep with Mabel's sweater to keep him company. They emerged from the woods into the welcoming yellow light of the Shack's glowing windows and tramped up the wooden stairs to the door, which stuck a little from the moisture in the air. Dipper shoved his shoulder against it, and it popped open with a scraping noise.

"Keep it down in there!" Stan's voice hollered from the kitchen. He leaned around the doorframe and covered the mouthpiece of the phone that he held to his ear. "There's Stan-burgers on the table. Use plenty of ketchup and they'll taste fine. I'll be there in a minute."

Then he vanished again. Mabel raised an eyebrow at Dipper, who shrugged. They went into the living room and found tv-trays set up with burgers and colas, one of Stan's old VHS tapes queued up and ready to play.

Mabel picked up the case and waved it at her brother. "Oooh," she said. " _Oceans Thirty-Two_. I've been wanting to see this one."

"Eh – they haven't been any good since _Oceans Seventeen_ , if you ask me."

Mabel curled up in the beanbag chair, scooting her tv-tray over so she could reach the hot burger on her plate. It smelled slightly odd – like maybe it wasn't _precisely_ beef – but she didn't dwell on it. As long as she smothered it in lots of ketchup and paid attention to the heist shenanigans of the film playing in front of her, there was no problem.

No problems at all.

From the other room, they could hear the rise and fall of Stan's voice as he discussed things with whoever was on the other end of the phone. Occasionally, a snatch of the conversation was audible, but as much as she strained her ears, Mabel could never make out more than a phrase here or a word there.

"…other side of the globe, I know…"

"…not like I _knew_! …yeah and laws were better back then too…"

"…in a cave. What? No – just crickets so far."

" _Mabel_."

Mabel started, realizing that Dipper was saying her name. By the look on his face, he'd said it several times. His expression was sympathetic.

"We can turn off the movie if you want," he offered.

Mabel took a determined sip of her cola and settled deeper into the beanbag. She would _not_ worry about this. Grunkle Stan was doing the right thing, and she was going to trust him.

"No," she said. "Sorry. I'm paying attention. I swear."

But if you had asked her afterward, Mabel couldn't have told you what happened in the movie. Or, well, she probably _could_ have, but only because the _Oceans_ movies were all pretty much the same story and it wouldn't have taken too much guessing.

"Good news, kids," Stan said, coming into the room and flopping into his armchair. "I've got a pal who works with dragons, and he's said he'll come by with a few friends in the morning and take Squeaker somewhere he'll have plenty of space and other dragon friends."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa— _wait._ " Mabel pointed a finger at Stan. "You don't believe in the supernatural, Grunkle Stan. So how do you have a _paaaal_ —" she drew out the word and put it in quotey-fingers "—who works with _dragons_?"

Stan scratched his stomach absently. "I've got all kinds of pals," he said, nonchalant. "Pals who work with dragons, pals who tell your future, pals who talk to aliens who don't talk back, pals who pay taxes and vote – just because they're my _paaaaal_ —" he drew it out and made the same air quotes "—doesn't mean I believe the stuff they do is real."

"But—" Dipper protested, "Dragons? Really?" He tossed a piece of popcorn across the room dejectedly and muttered for Mabel's ears only: "And here I don't even have a page in the journal _about_ dragons."

She picked up a pen from the skull table next to his chair and poked her brother's head with it. "So go write on," she whispered. He took the pen from her and clicked it.

"I guess I could," he said, a little smile crossing his face. "I mean, I did add that bit about the leaf blower."

"What're you kids whispering about?" Stan grunted, clicking through the tv channels with his clunky old remote.

Dipper hopped up. "Nothing at all, Stan," he said airily. "I'm just…gonna go…read. Yeah. Upstairs. Goodnight!"

As he darted away, Mabel pushed herself up out of the beanbag and gathered up her dinner dishes. "When will your pal be here?" she asked, wishing the answer would be 'in a month' or 'at the end of the summer' but not holding out much hope.

"First thing in the morning," Stan said. He muted the television and looked at her. "You, ah…you gonna be okay with that?"

Mabel forced a cheerful grin. "I'm always okay, Grunkle Stan."

He looked relieved, and she couldn't regret the lie. "Good, good," he said, clearing his throat and focusing back on the tv, as if embarrassed to have shown concern.

Mabel's tight grin relaxed into a faint, fond smile. She carried her plate and glass into the kitchen, put them in the sink, and followed Dipper up to their attic bedroom. As she pulled climbed into bed – having confiscated her brother's pen and replaced it with one that didn't click – she pulled the covers up around her ears. She missed the warm weight of Squeaker curling up in the bend of her knees, even after only a night.

She didn't cry as she fell asleep, but her dreams were filled with dragons running through the forest and the faint smell of burnt marshmallows.


	8. Chapter 8

Mabel awoke to the sound of men's voices in the Shack.

She tumbled out of bed and discovered that Dipper – usually the later riser of the two of them – was already gone, his sleeping shirt abandoned in a heap on the floor. She changed quickly out of her pajamas and into a green sweater that she had quickly appliquéd a dragon onto yesterday (it had originally had a turtle on the front, but she thought the new version was far superior) before clattering down the attic steps and into the kitchen.

There, she found Stan, Dipper, and two strangers laughing at something over plates of bacon and eggs and mugs of coffee. Well, Dipper had orange juice in his, but she noticed he'd still poured it into a coffee mug.

"Good morning!" she sang out, sliding across the kitchen floor in her sock feet and popping open the refrigerator. "I'm Mabel – and you're sitting in my chair." She grabbed the orange juice from the rack and shook it at the shorter of the two strangers.

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Sorry, then," he said, standing and scooting to the next chair over. "Is that better?"

Mabel's eyes widened and she nearly dropped the juice. "Are you from _London_?" she demanded.

The man was built like a wrestler – stocky and broad-shouldered. His hair was red and cropped short, and he wore a green polo with the initials RDS embroidered over the heart. He grinned at Mabel, and a scar tugged at the corner of his lips, making him very rakish indeed.

"Bit north of there, actually," he answered. "You must be Mabel – the girl who hatched the dragon."

"Mabel," Stan said, dishing up a plate of eggs for her. "This is Howard and Chuck. Chuck and I go back a bit – I helped him dispose of a couple dozen Stanvacs back in the day."

" _After_ you sold them to my dad," the red-headed stranger said pointedly. "And," he added, looking at Mabel, "I go by Charlie."

Stan waved a hand, and handed Mabel her plate. She hopped up into her seat, and looked across at Dipper, whose face was nearly purple with the excitement he was managing not to burst with. Eating breakfast with guys who took care of dragons – Mabel was sure it was a dream come true.

She remembered her own dragon-filled dreams of the night before and her heart sank a little. These men were here for Squeaker, after all. She couldn't let their accents or general coolness disarm her.

"I'm impressed that you managed to hatch one at all," the other man – Howard, who was tall and stringy where Charlie was broad, and dark where Charlie was pale. "Especially if, as you say, the egg had been dormant for over thirty years."

She shrugged, stuffing her mouth with eggs so she didn't have to talk.

Dipper, apparently unable to stifle his curiosity any longer, came to her rescue. He whipped out a lined notepad and a pen and clicked it anxiously. "Can I ask you some questions?" he said. "Like – how is it possible that it stayed in its egg for thirty years without hatching? Why did it grow so fast? Is it going to keep growing? How fast? How much?"

He kept up a running stream of questions, dashing down the answers as quickly as Charlie or Howard could explain them to him. Mabel ate her breakfast silently. It tasted good, but sat in her stomach like a brick. She caught Stan looking at her worriedly, and managed a smile at him.

The meal was over too soon.

Charlie, standing and placing his plate on the counter, cocked his head at Mabel. "I hate to rush," he said, "And breakfast was delicious. But we've got to be back in Romania by tomorrow night, and they're forecasting a bit of rough weather on our way back."

Mabel swallowed her last bite. "What'cha gotta go back for?" she asked. "Maybe you should stay a while. Like for a week. Or the rest of the summer."

"Howard," Charlie said. "You go on and get the equipment out." He waited until the other man was out of the room – Dipper close on his heels – and then bent down on one knee to be at eye-level with Mabel. She couldn't help but notice, now that he was this close, all the scars that crisscrossed his arms and face. One in particular, a large burn on his arm, was shiny with age and almost looked like a flame tattoo.

"You hatched it," he said softly. "That's a fantastic thing to see – you're a really lucky girl, Mabel Pines. I've only seen a hatching twice in my whole life, and I've been working with dragons for almost twenty years. There's nothing quite like it. It's magic."

Mabel crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. "Yeah," she agreed.

"I understand that saying goodbye is going to be hard," Charlie continued. "But you've got to do what's best for the dragon."

"Squeaker," she corrected. "His name is Squeaker."

Charlie looked a little surprised, and glanced up to meet Stan's eyes. Stan shrugged, his arms folded over his chest. " _She_ named it," he said.

"Squeaker, then," Charlie said. "We're going to take him to a place where he'll have all the room to roam he could ever want – mountains, rivers, caves, forests – and plenty of other dragons to keep him company. No one can come and hunt them or hurt them, and if you ever wanted to visit, well. I'm sure I could work something out."

"You mean it?" Mabel asked, lifting her head.

"Of course I mean it." Charlie looked offended. "Do you have any idea what my mum would do if I made a promise to a girl who hatched a dragon, and didn't keep my word?" he gave an exaggerated shudder. "Trust me – it would _not_ be pretty."

In spite of herself, Mabel smiled. "I'll take you to the cave," she said, hopping off the chair. She still wasn't a hundred percent okay with giving Squeaker up so soon, but this sanctuary Charlie promised to take the dracling to sounded nice enough. And maybe she _could_ visit one day. Dipper would love that.

"Just let me grab my shoes."

* * *

"Squeaker?" Mabel called, ducking under a branch as she entered the clearing with the cave. The dracling's green snout poked immediately out of his cave, and he came scampering out to meet her – all seven feet of him,

Mabel stepped back in surprise. "Whoa!"

Squeaker, now easily the size of a pony, pranced along lightly, weaving his head up and down in pleasure and excitement that she was there. He snorted indignantly at Stan, Dipper, and the two strangers as they came stumbling out of the underbrush, but didn't seem to actually pay too much attention to them, since Mabel's pockets smelled like bacon and _suddenly_ that was the most intriguing scent in the world.

He nosed at her, poking his hard snout at her hip and nearly bumping her over, but she only laughed and dug the bacon out of her pocket. Scratching the dracling's head as he munched happily at the treat, she grinned. "Thought you might like something a bit more than crickets today."

Charlie looked at Howard with a frown. "You say he hatched _yesterday_?"

"The day before yesterday, actually," Dipper said. He poked at his lip with his pen, thoughtful. "How… how big, exactly, do dragons get?"

"About dragon-sized," Howard said vaguely, circling the munching Squeaker with a puzzled expression on his face. "But I've never heard of a breed that grew so large so fast. Usually dragons take months to mature."

"Squeaker's special," Mabel said, proud. A tiny hope niggled at her. "He's… he's not too big for you to take with you, is he?"

Charlie smiled at her, a little regretfully. "Sorry, Mabel. No luck there. We've transported full-grown dragons before – Squeaker may be big for his age, but he's no challenge to us."

She deflated somewhat. "Ah… I figured you'd say that."

She continued to play with the dracling, pushing away the sadness to focus on how his scales glimmered in the morning sun, or the way his eyes swirled when he was amused, or how intently he watched the twitching stick that she teased him with. While she kept Squeaker distracted, Howard and Charlie began to unpack what looked – at first – like a canvas duffle bag. But they started unfolding it. And it doubled, and doubled again, and again, and again until it lay on the ground like a giant floppy blanket, almost six feet square.

Dipper was watching with eyes the size of frying pans. "What – how is that – what did you—?" he spluttered.

Charlie winked at him. "Magic."

Grunkle Stan snorted. "Hookum," he retorted, his arms crossed over his chest. "Probably Russian technology."

Howard rolled his eyes and pulled open the duffle bag's flap. "Alright," he said to Mabel. "Let's get him settled inside."

Mabel eyed the bag doubtfully. It was bigger, sure, but it still didn't look roomy enough for a dragon. And it was flat. Was Squeaker going to have to curl up in a bag all the way back to Romania?

Howard saw her dubious expression and a sly grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Just try it," he said, gesturing inside the limp bag.

Mabel stepped forward and peered inside. Her eyes widened.

The bag's opening led into a spacious, barn-like room, with straw-strewn floors, walls of some pale-gold wood, and wall-mounted lanterns of pewter and amber glass. The sweet smell of hay and something like cinnamon wafted out.

"It's—"

"You're going to want to say something like, 'larger on the inside,' I know," Charlie said, holding up a hand. "But please don't. We hear it all the time, and besides – wrong franchise."

Mabel put her hands on her hips. "I was going to say, _magic_ , but whatever."

She wrapped her arm around Squeaker's neck and led him toward the bag's opening. He took one whiff of the delightful smell and squeaked in excitement, bolting into the magical interior without a backward glance. When Mabel followed him in, climbing down three shallow stairs into the room, she found the dracling up to his ears in a trough full of something that smelled very much like Squeaker's own toasted-marshmallow scent.

Charlie poked his head in above her. "It's a—" he glanced over his shoulder, presumably at Stan. "Ahem. A _magical_ trough," he stage-whispered. "It's specially designed to provide exactly what the dragon needs."

Mabel nudged Squeaker's head aside. "Looks like… toasted crickets and molasses?"

Charlie shrugged. "I've seen stranger." He gave her a little go-ahead gesture. "You should probably… say your goodbyes."

He vanished back into the sunlight streaming down from above, and left Mabel with her arm around Squeaker's shoulders. The dragon was making happy snurfing noises as he scarfed down the crispy snack, and in spite of herself, Mabel smiled.

"I'm gonna miss you," she said, kneeling down and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I promise I won't forget about you."

Squeaker pulled his snout out of the trough and nuzzled in her hair – leaving sticky bug-bits all over it, but Mabel didn't care. He whuffled in her ear, and she breathed deeply of the hot smell of marshmallows.

Tears stung at her eyes, and she blinked quickly, sniffling. "I… I gotta go, Squeaks," she said, standing up and scrubbing at her face with the sleeve of her sweater. "You're going to have a blast – I promise. Lots of crickets and—" her voice cracked "And…and… other friends…"

Too late. She was crying. "Just don't forget about _me_ , okay?"

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Grunkle Stan. His face was creased in sadness, and he cleared his throat twice before saying,

"Come on, kiddo. Chuck and Howie need to get on the road."

Mabel threw her arms around her grunkle's waist and heaved a shuddering sigh. "I don't want him to go," she whispered.

He knelt down and held her at arm's length. "Hey, hey now," he said. "Hey. Sometimes people just gotta go, okay? It's rough. Like – I know, it really stinks. But that's life and sometimes it just does. Stink, that is."

In spite of his harsh-sounding words, Stan's tone was gruffly understanding, and Mabel nodded. Wiping her face with the hem of her sweater, she gave Squeaker one last pat and let Stan take her hand.

She didn't look back until they stepped out of the stall/bag/thing, and when she did, she had to smile. Squeaker, obviously not one for prolonged goodbyes, had buried his face in the trough again, and was contentedly munching, his tail swishing back and forth like a happy cat.

As she stepped out, Charlie zipped up the bag and he and Howard began to fold it back down until it was once again the size of a normal duffle bag.

"Well, Stan," Charlie said, turning to shake Grunkle Stan's hand. "It's been a pleasure. Please let's not do it again."

Stan jerked his thumb at Mabel. "Hey, she's the one who hatched the thing."

"Right, you're just the guy who stole it out of a foreign country and kept it in your knickknack house of horrors for three decades." But the red-headed man was smiling, so he couldn't have been too upset. "Just let me know _fast_ if anything else starts hatching in there, alright?"

Dipper sidled up to Mabel. "You…gonna be okay?" he asked.

Mabel sniffed, but put on a smile. "Yeah," she said. "Eventually. Maybe Grunkle Stan will let me get a dog after this."

"I wouldn't count on it." Dipper nudged her with his elbow. "But there are _lots_ of other rocks in the Shack…"

"You boys need a ride back to the airport or anything?" Stan was asking Charlie and Howard. The two dragon caretakers gave each other significant glances and Howard said,

"Nah, but thanks. We left our, ah… our rides parked at the motel. We'll be fine." He passed the magically-expanding duffle bag to Charlie, who shouldered it.

Then the two men – and their dragon cargo – headed back toward the Shack, and Gravity Falls.

Mabel watched them go, and sank onto the log outside the cave with a sigh. She was happy… but sad. But happy. But… sad. It was confusing.

"Right." Stan turned around and clapped his hands. "So. Petting zoo?"

Ah. Now there was something not confusing at all.

* * *

 **A/N:**

And that's it for this one, folks! This chapter was a bear to write, believe it or not. I'm still not satisfied with the ending, but it was getting so long I felt I just had to cut it off at some point. Writing Mabel in distress is surprisingly hard, and I would have loved to go further into that but... space demands. Also the fact that I'm totally pumped to start work on my next fic, The Haunted Staircase, which I posted a summery of last chapter. Check back soon for that! And let me know what you think - did I get Mabel ok? Is Charlie a leeeeetle too obvious? LOL Glad to hear what you thought - and see you next week (hopefully) for the next adventure!  
~Essie


End file.
